RETHINKING BROADBAND AS AN ECOSYSTEM
100 million videos, not only host user-created content, but also are developed by users—as distinct from the media corporations that have dominated the market for decades. Estimates suggest that YouTube crossed 1 billion video views per day in mid-2008. As Hardy and Hessel (2008) noted in Forbes magazine, the site is likely the “biggest television station on the planet.” Indeed, there is much interest in user-created content. The OECD defines user-created content as content that is made publicly available on the Internet, reflects a certain amount of creative effort, and is created outside professional routines and practices. The OECD predicts that the popularity of user-created content will likely continue to grow, with new drivers furthering its creation and use. Specifically, consumers will use mobile devices to create content and watch usercreated content, with higher uplink data transmission speeds and other consumer devices allowing easier content upload (OECD 2009, 262). The demand for mobile broadband capable of video capture and sharing will only grow.
Notes 1. Data are from TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database. 2. Data are from the Wireless Intelligence database. 3. In the 2008 Data Gathering Order, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission updated the broadband reporting speed tiers and created the term first generation data for services with data speeds between 200 and 768 kbps in the faster direction and the term basic broadband tier 1 for services with speeds between 768 kbps and 1.5 Mbps in the faster direction. Subsequent tiers were labeled broadband tier 2 through broadband tier 7 (FCC 2009, 51). 4. Data are from TeleGeography’s Global Bandwidth Research Service database. 5. Figures are based on World Bank analysis using data from the Economist Intelligence Unit’s database. 6. Data are for 2009 and are from the Minnesota Internet Traffic Studies at http://www.dtc.umn.edu/mints/home.php.
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